InfoPrint Solutions Company Establishes Global Leadership in TransPromo
BOULDER, CO—March 10, 2009—InfoPrint Solutions Company, a joint venture between IBM and Ricoh, today announced that it continues to drive the worldwide adoption of TransPromo, an innovative marketing technique combining personalized marketing with trusted statements such as bills. This is via the opening of InfoPrint Innovation Centers, coupled with running TransPromo pilot promotions to demonstrate the business benefits of its use. InfoPrint’s customers using its full-color, continuous forms drop-on-demand inkjet printing system, the InfoPrint 5000, are also running successful trials, with direct mailers and transactional printers around the world.
InfoPrint recently opened a regional Printing Innovation Center in Shanghai, China, alongside its Boulder Innovation Center in Colorado and the CoCooN Center - Color Cooperation Network - at Williams Lea in Germany. The centers each boast state-of-the-art capabilities designed to incubate new solutions and ideas, and are focused on encouraging collaboration around next generation printing infrastructure to address current business challenges both locally and globally.
InfoPrint also announces today their most recent TransPromo pilot results. InfoPrint completed a trial with one of the top three US cable companies.** From this pilot, the Multi-Systems Operator (MSO) saw an increase of nearly one third of registrants for its digital phone service compared to the control group. Together, with the technology team member CSG Systems, leaders in customer interaction management and customized color print communications, InfoPrint integrated targeted and personalized color into the MSO’s monthly cable statements.
In 2008, InfoPrint completed a TransPromo pilot with leading hotel brand Best Western International® at its Boulder Innovation Center. The program ran for eight weeks which resulted in a 278% ROI, the generation of significant additional revenues, as well as a 500 percent increase in Best Western co-branded MasterCard® registrations versus the control group.
“Encouraging ongoing education and collaboration around TransPromo is key to driving its adoption,” said Sandra Zoratti, Vice President, Global Solutions Marketing at InfoPrint. “In lean times, it’s all about customer retention. TransPromo enables marketers the ability to turn an existing cost center into a revenue generator by strategically leveraging routine customer communications to promote relevant upsells and cross sells - cutting through the clutter, increasing ROI.”
Alongside its innovation centers, InfoPrint has demonstrated market leadership with numerous reference accounts in production around the world using its full-color, continuous forms inkjet drop-on-demand printer, the InfoPrint 5000. These are in countries including the US, UK, Italy, Spain, Germany, France, Japan and India. These sites, combined with the high quality, speed, reliability and ease of use of the InfoPrint 5000 make it a proven option for direct mailers and transactional printers looking to implement TransPromo solutions, as well as commercial printers looking for its superb balance of quality color, speed and price.
Research from industry analyst firm InfoTrends states that transactional documents are opened and read by more than 90% of consumers*. Because the average consumer is bombarded with advertising, e-mail, direct mail and other forms of solicitation each day, TransPromo helps brands cut through the clutter and stand out. TransPromo is specifically targeted at production environments and distributed environments where documents such as high-volume statements, low- to mid-volume invoices, e-mails, hotel key folders and storefront customer documents are common.
*The TransPromo Revolution: The Time is Now!, an InfoTrends Strategic Assessment, August 2007
** The CSG TransPromo results were obtained through a pilot project conducted for a US cable operator by InfoPrint Solutions Company, working with the CMO Council, and are reused with their permission.
About InfoPrint Solutions Company
InfoPrint Solutions Company, headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, is a joint venture between IBM and Ricoh built on IBM’s nearly 50 years in the production print space and Ricoh’s excellence in technology innovation. Together, the two companies are bringing to market a portfolio that includes solutions for production printing for enterprises and commercial printers, as well as office workgroup environments and industrial segments.
Operating in 36 countries worldwide, InfoPrint holds more than 200 technology patents in the printing and output related industry including the invention of the Advanced Function Presentation (AFP) Architecture, which is a de-facto industry standard for production printing environments. In 2010, InfoPrint will become a fully owned subsidiary of The Ricoh Company, joining an extensive portfolio of innovative technology brands in the Ricoh family. Ricoh Company Ltd., is 72-year-old leading supplier of office automation equipment and electronics, with fiscal year 2007 sales in excess of $22 billion, a 7.3 percent increase over the previous year.
Visit www.infoprint.com for more information.
